Axel Alonso: President Obama Inspired Idea of Black Spider-Man

August 05, 2011 07:32:10 GMT

Meanwhile, writer Brian Michael Bendis said that Donald Glover's plea to play an African-American Spider-Man also played a role in the way Miles Morales looks in the comic.

Marvel Comics has made a breakout when introducing a mild-mannered half-black, half-Latino teen from New York, Miles Morales, as a new Spider-Man in the new "Ultimate Comics Spider-Man". Marvel's chief editor Axel Alonso recently revealed that President Obama, in some way, inspired the birth of mixed-race Spider-Man.

According to AFP, Alonso said that the idea of a non-white Spider-Man first came up when President Barack Obama, who has an African descendant, ran for the White House and was elected as the first president with African-American roots. And the right occasion to introduce this new Spider-Man came when Peter Parker died in June.

"When the opportunity arose to create a new Spider-Man, we knew it had to be a character that represents the diversity-in background and experience-of the twenty-first century," Alonso said in a statement released a few days ago. "Miles is a character who not only follows in the tradition of relatable characters like Peter Parker, but also shows why he's a new, unique kind of Spider-Man-and worthy of that name."

As for the decision to go with mixed-race rather than plain black character, it apparently has a quite personal relation to Alonso as well as comic-book writer Brian Michael Bendis. Alonso's father is Mexican and his mother British, while Bendis is Jewish and has two adopted children from Africa.

Meanwhile, "Ultimate Spider-Man" writer Bendis credited Donald Glover, who launched an online campaign last year to play an African-American version of Spider-Man in "The Amazing Spider-Man", for the way Miles looks in the comic book. "He looked fantastic!" he recalled the time he saw the "Community" actor dressing in Spider-Man pajamas at a red carpet event. "I saw him in the costume and thought, 'I would like to read that book'."

Post Your Comments

posted by piell on Aug 07, 2011The character, itself, will not matter. It would be a racist/prejudice statement if the whole cast of any film is one color or depicted one racial idea (for example, the BET network). Diversity is good, within limits.

posted by lauradet on Aug 05, 2011I think it's great to show a diverse Spider Man...although I bet there will be a lot of whites that disagree.